If you would open your Bibles
to the book of Genesis, Genesis chapter 32. Genesis chapter 32. In the Old
Testament, there are a lot of people that I can relate to.
There are a lot of experiences and trials that individuals go
through that I can look at them and see myself and learn from
them. But there's probably one person
in the Old Testament that I feel like I can relate to the most,
as well as I want to be like this person because I'm already
so much like this person. I want what this person has.
And that person is Jacob. Jacob is a man that, there are
two main things that we think of when we hear the name Jacob.
The first is that Jacob's name means deceiver, supplanter, trickster,
liar. And I can relate to that. I can
understand that when someone would hear my name, they would
think those things. That when someone hears a sinner's
name, It's not the things we want them to think of. We don't
often hear about ourselves and think things like, well, that's
a really nice person, or they're really smart, or all these compliments. Instead, we often think of the
negative things they've done to us, or the things that we
see that are so much like ourselves. And the other thing that we often
hear about Jacob is the opposite of that, or the thing that I
envy Jacob over, and that's the phrase, Jacob hath I loved, Esau
have I hated. I relate to Jacob partially because
of I'm like him, but the part I really want, I want to be like
Jacob, is the second part, the part that Jacob is loved. And
not just loved, but he's loved instead of the people who deserve
the love, the people who should get the love, who have maybe
a right to the love. And so I wanna look at the most
important event in Jacob's life, and that's in Genesis 32, and
verse 24. We'll read this account and then
we'll look more into Jacob and what led up to this. Genesis
32, verse 24, and Jacob was left alone and there wrestled a man
with him until the breaking of the day. And when he saw that
he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his
thigh and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint as he
wrestled with him. And he said, let me go for the
day breaketh. And he said, or Jacob said, I
will not let thee go except thou bless me. And he said unto him,
what is thy name? And he said, Jacob. And he said,
Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel. For as a prince
hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed. And Jacob asked him and said,
Tell me, I pray thee, thy name. And he said, Wherefore is it
that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him there. And
Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, for I have seen
God face to face, and my life is preserved. And as he passed
over Peniel, the sun rose upon him, and he halted upon his thigh.
Therefore the children of Israel eat not of the sinew which shrank,
which is upon the hollow of the thigh, unto this day, because
he touched the hollow of Jacob's thigh, and the sinew that shrank. Let's look at Jacob's life before
this point. Let's look at what Jacob went
through. Let's look at how Jacob got to
this point. So it starts with Jacob being
in the womb. Jacob's parents, Isaac and Rebekah,
Rebekah was barren and couldn't have children, and for almost
20 years she wanted to have children. Though Isaac was promised a seed,
she never could have children. Then she became pregnant, And
she felt uneasy in her stomach. And the two children were wrestling.
And as they were born, Esau was first. So to start off, Jacob
was second. Jacob was born into the life
that he had into his family without the birthright, without the rights.
He was not the firstborn. He was not the most deserving
or the one who would get everything passed down from the father.
But as he was born, it says that Jacob reached and grabbed the
heel of Esau. Jacob wanted what Esau had, but
he didn't have the right to have it. Once these boys were born,
Esau was loved of his father. Esau worked the fields. Esau
hunted. He was a man's man. He was talented. His father loved him greatly.
And it says that Jacob was a man who dwelled in tents. At this
time, I'm not sure there's a worse thing you could say about somebody.
This is basically implying that Jacob didn't really do much. Jacob didn't really give anything. He didn't provide anything. He
didn't really do any of the things that would earn him something.
And as he got older, he still wanted to have the things that
Esau had. So the next thing he did was
when his brother had been working in the fields, had been hunting,
he'd been out, and he hadn't eaten anything, he didn't have
anything to drink, and he felt like he was about to die. He
came to his brother, the one who he had the closest relationship
with, the two brothers, the only children, and he came to his
brother and said, please give me something or I'm going to
die. So instead of Jacob offering his brother something, giving
him something to eat, something to drink, instead he thinks,
this is my chance. I'm going to take advantage of
my brother in this moment. So he tells Esau, I'll give you
something to eat, but you have to swear and give me your birthright. And Esau thinks to himself, well,
I'm going to die. So I don't care about anything
except getting this. And that's a story for a different
story. Can you imagine doing that? Unfortunately,
I'm sure I've done many things equal or worse than that. But
when we think of Jacob and we see this illustration of how
evil Jacob really was, we think about the deceit in this moment. But Jacob seemed willing that
his brother would die before he would give him something to
provide for him. So Esau sold his birthright to
Jacob. Then Jacob, the next step is
he now has to get his father to give him the blessing of the
birthright. So he waits until his father is old and feeble
enough that he can't see, he can't hear, and he's not really
able to decipher who's in front of him. He puts fur on his arm
to appear more hairy and things like his brother. He disguises
his voice and he goes into his father. Now think about how far
his father had to be for them to even consider. Think about
going into your father and asking for something, and him not knowing
that it's the other child. But they do that, they deceive
his own father, so he's deceived every man in his life at this
point, his brother and his father, and his brother gives him, or
his father gives him the blessing. So next thing we see is that
Esau finds out and Esau threatens to kill his brother. So Jacob's
mother sends him off to a distant land. They even make it appear
that he needs to go there so he can find a wife, so that Isaac
sends him off. So everything at this point in
Jacob's life is basically deceit. and betrayal. Everything he's
gotten in his life, because he hasn't earned any of it, everything
he's gotten in his life he's done by lying and getting things
he didn't deserve. And they were all on his own
hands. So he flees with his mother telling him to go find a wife,
and he goes on a trip, and on that trip he has a dream, and
the Lord comes to him. The Lord comes to him and Jacob
has the dream of the ladder that ascends up to heaven and angels
coming down and up. And the Lord says to him, that
I will bless you. He blesses him. He gives him
his blessing and promises it to him. And this would confirm
what Jacob's heard his whole life. Jacob's mother said to
him, The Lord said to Jacob's mother, two nations are in thy
womb and two manner of people shall be separated from the bowels. One people shall be stronger
and the elder shall serve the younger. So Jacob has heard his
whole life that he's the blessed one, that the Lord will bless
him. And the Lord tells him this. So Jacob goes on and he goes
to Laban, that's his mother's family, to the man Laban and
begins to work for him. And Laban says, what do you want
for your work? And Jacob has fallen in love
with Rachel, with his daughter. And he says, I want to marry
Rachel. And Laban says, well, you work
for seven years and you can have Rachel's hand. So after seven
years of work, he goes to Laban and says, I've worked seven years,
I now want to marry your daughter. So Laban, pulling a Jacob on
him, deceives him and tricks him into marrying his older daughter
Leah. So now Jacob has worked seven
years to marry a woman he loves, and he now has married the older
sister. And so Laban says, but you can marry her, but you have
to work another seven years. So he works seven more years
to marry Rachel, and he marries her. And at that point in Jacob's
life, he has to go through everything with Laban that Jacob was doing
to his family. Laban deceives him in so many
ways, turns on him, he keeps tricking him and forcing him
to stay. And finally the Lord goes to him and the Lord tells
Jacob, you need to go home. You have to go home. Look back
in Genesis 31 verse three. And the Lord said unto Jacob,
Return unto the land of thy fathers and to thy kindred, and I will
be with thee. So he gets away from Laban, and
he leaves. Now there's many more things
that Laban keeps doing to him as he tries to leave, and Laban
keeps tricking him or deceiving him. But when Jacob leaves, he's
on his way, and he's about to get home. He's coming home. And
what do you think is waiting on him at home except his brother
Esau that he stole his birthright and he left 20 something years
ago with? He sends out his servants, he
says, go and see and see what Esau's doing. And as they come
back, they tell him, look in Genesis 32 verse six, He says, And the messengers returned
to Jacob, saying, We came to thy brother Esau, and also he
cometh to meet thee, and four hundred men with him. Then Jacob
was greatly afraid and distressed, and he divided the people that
was with him, and the flocks and herds and camels, into two
bands, and said, If Esau come to one company and smite it,
then the other company which is left shall escape. So this
is where Esau is before this encounter with the Lord. Esau's,
or I'm sorry, Jacob's life has been full of him deceiving or
being deceived himself. He sees Esau and these 400 men,
and he knows what he deserves. He sees Esau, and he thinks,
if I were in Esau's shoes, I know I'd be waiting on me to get back
so I could slay him. Not only is the hatred strong,
not only does Jacob deserve it, but that's what he would do.
We see how much Jacob cares for his brother. He would not think
twice about deceiving or letting him die. So in this moment, Jacob
was left alone, verse 24 of our text, and Jacob was left alone. Very few people have encountered
a more trying, troubled moment than Jacob was in. Jacob is alone,
he's afraid, and he's helpless. There's no more time nor room
for plotting, for scheming, or manipulating. Jacob is shut up
to the sovereign power and deliverance of God. That's where he is. He
was told to go home by God, and that's where he is. Like Israel
at the Red Sea, where Moses said, fear ye not, stand still, see
the salvation of the Lord, which he will show you today. For the
Egyptians whom you have seen today, you shall see them again
no more forever. And like Jonah in the whale,
when Jonah said, but I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving. I will pay that I have vowed
salvation is of the Lord. Salvation or the saving of Jacob
at this moment is completely left up to the Lord. Jacob is
with his wives and his children and their handmaids. That's who's
with him. And Esau has 400 men with him. Those whom the Lord is pleased
to save and to whom he will reveal his mercy in the Lord will all
be brought to this place of human helplessness and inability. We all must come to the place
that we realize that we can't do anything about it. So often
in religion, we hear of, if you will do this, these good works
and everything. But in actuality, what we really
try to do to procure our salvation is deceit. It's lying. It's tricking. So many people
have confidence in the things they so-called have done, but
their confidence is actually in they've deceived everyone
else into thinking they've done those things. Anyone who tells
you that they have good standing with God based on their works,
their standing in their own mind and hearts is in what they convinced
you of. They don't believe that. And
in this moment, Jacob is left without being able to trick his
way out of it or deceive it. There must be left no room for
boasting nor glorying in the flesh. Turn with me over to 1
Corinthians, 1 Corinthians chapter 1. We must get to this place that
we realize there's nothing we can do, nothing we can say, that
we're totally reliant upon the mercy and the grace of our Lord.
1 Corinthians 1 verse 26. For ye see your calling, brethren,
how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not
many noble are called. But God hath chosen the foolish
things of the world to confound the wise, and God hath chosen
the weak things of the world to confound the things which
are mighty. and base things of the world, and things which are
despised hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to
bring to naught things that are, that no flesh should glory in
his presence. But of him are ye in Christ Jesus,
who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification,
and redemption, that, according as it is written, he that glorieth
let him glory in the Lord. As Jacob is alone, the next line
says, there wrestled a man with him. Who was this man? Well, there's no doubt that it
was Christ. The Lord frequently appeared
in human form to saints in the Old Testament as a pledge or
a token of His future incarnation. And in verses 26, 28, and 30,
we see signs that reveal who the man was. In verse 26, It
says, except thou bless me. Jacob says, except thou bless
me. Verse 28, the person wrestling says, thy name shall be called
no more Jacob, but Israel, for a prince hast thou power with
God. Who could say that except for the Lord? And then in verse
30, Jacob calls the place, I have seen God face to face. All those
tell us that it's the Lord that's wrestling with Jacob. Jacob,
being an object of God's love and mercy, was laid hold of by
the Lord Jesus in sovereign power and purpose. Every sinner must
be laid hold of by the Lord Jesus Christ. Jacob, in his loneliness,
in his fear, and in his need, laid hold of Christ. When the
Lord grabs hold of us in what we see and what we realize in
that moment, We realized how alone we are, how afraid we are,
and how much we need. And the Lord will make us to
grab hold of him. This was a physical, a mental,
and a spiritual conflict that had to be resolved. God is sovereign
and man is responsible. God will have his people and
his people will have their God. The Lord is king by right. He's
rightfully king. He is king by decree, and he
is king by his death. But the Lord will be king in
the hearts of all his people by submission and surrender. When I said God will have his
people and his people will have their God, the Lord will make
all of his children love him, but all of his children love
him in the way that they submit themselves and they surrender
themselves. It says in Psalms, thy people
shall be willing in the day of thy power. There's no one that
loves the Lord that doesn't willingly love Him. No one loves the Lord
unless He makes them love, but the Lord makes a sinner willing.
It says in Romans, that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth
the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath
raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the
heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession
is made unto salvation. And then it says, they wrestled
until the breaking of the day. This started when night came
and Jacob divided up his wives and the children so that if Esau
was going to slay us, maybe he wouldn't realize he couldn't
get to all of us. But this was not a brief or a passing encounter. This is not what we see so often
in religion. This was not an indifferent decision.
This was not a quick moment. This was not a come down front
and say something. This was a long encounter. There
are great issues at stake in this wrestling match. Eternal
matters will be resolved right here as Christ personally meets
Jacob. God will bless and use Jacob,
but it will be a conquered, subdued, and surrendered Jacob. No child
of God is ever used until that child is conquered, until they're
subdued, until they surrender. And then in verse 25 it says,
When he saw that he prevailed not against Jacob, he touched
his thigh and crippled him. And we all know there's no question
here that the Lord could have easily subdued Jacob. That's
not the point of that. But the conflict was ordered
by God and the outcome was never in doubt. But God's people are
not puppets nor robots. And through the revelation of
our Lord and the Holy Spirit, through our trials, through our
dealings with those, The child of God must see, they must feel,
and they must experience the frailty of the flesh. They must
understand and experience the emptiness of the world around
us. And they must experience the glory of God in Christ. And the last thing that comes
from that, once they see that, their desire above all things
is the salvation of the Lord and his presence with them. And
then the Lord struck a crippling blow, and Jacob went down. Our Lord, showing His power,
did something that no man could have done. He simply touched
Jacob, and his hip came out of socket. This was a crippling
blow, and I think a writer wrote that, and it's a great description
of this. This is a blow that Jacob will realize and remember
and feel forever. Jacob will remember this moment
as well as he will also understand the power of the one who did
that. Jacob, wrestling with the Lord, realized that one simple
touch was all that it took to end everything. And then Jacob
went down. This touch from the Lord would
have caused Jacob to fall down. It would have caused him to be
on the ground. Jacob couldn't have stood. Jacob couldn't have
even been on his knees with this injury. This is what the Lord's
touch, what the Lord's blessing does. It causes the sinner to
never be the same. We never feel as strong as we
once did. We realize that our place is
to be below, to get down on our knees, to get on our hands and
knees, to understand where we belong in this relationship. And then it says, he had touched
Jacob and would leave. But Jacob held on, crying for
the Lord's blessing and power. This is so important. Jacob says,
I will not let thee go except thou bless me. Jacob had had
an unusual revelation. He had wrestled with God. He
had been wounded, but the battle was not over for Jacob until
he is assured that the Lord's permanent blessing was upon him
and his peace within him. This is the result of every child
of God when the Lord does a work in them. When the Lord touches
a sinner and shows them who they are, how weak they are, how incapable
they are, how hopeless they are in themselves, their immediate
response is to grab on. to hold tight. It doesn't say
where Jacob grabbed, it didn't say how he grabbed, because none
of it matters. He just had to have a hold of
the Lord. And we already know the Lord,
he couldn't actually have held on to the Lord. The Lord could
have gotten away, that wasn't the point. But in this moment,
in the same way that a child of God, that a sinner, reaches
out and holds on to the Lord, they grab to His Word. They want
to hear about Him. They want to know about Him.
They want to worship Him. That's what the Lord causes in His children. And when we do this, it's a sign
of faith. It shows the Lord's work in us.
This moment when Jacob reached out and held on to the Lord,
he would not let go, was life or death for Jacob. This was
a battle that would not be fought again. Jacob knew if he didn't
grab on then, he wouldn't grab on. He had heard promises of
God's blessings. Now he wanted them in truth.
Jacob's whole life, you know from a very young age, it says
how his mother had an affection for him. And we know there was
no reason for that except that what she'd been told when those
boys were born. I often had thought that Isaac loved Esau and Rebekah
loved Jacob, just because that's who they loved. But that wasn't
it. Rebekah loved Jacob because of
what the Lord had told her. She loved him because she loved
the Lord. And Jacob's whole life, everything
he had, everything he'd done, he'd accomplished or lack thereof,
was all under the guise from his mother had told him the Lord
would bless him. and that the Lord told him. But
in this moment, Jacob realizes that he needs the blessing. He
realizes this is what I have to have. I have to hold on to
the Lord. I have to get his blessing. because
he was still Jacob. Despite all the things that had
been said to him, had Jacob ever done anything that made it appear
that he deserved this? Jacob's past was clouded with
sin. He was a wanderer in a strange
country, and he still had to go face Esau. He knew he was
no better off for this experience unless the Lord gave him his
approval, his acceptance, and his presence. Then in verse 27,
our Lord asked, what is your name? Is all I could think when
he said that. And I don't know if, I'm not
sure Jacob's name then and whether every time someone said Jacob,
they think the same way we do. But I kept thinking to myself,
the Lord asked him one question. He says, what is your name? That's
the defining characteristic of Jacob, right? And that's all
we ever think about when we hear Jacob. When I hear the name Jacob,
no matter who it is, it can be somebody I meet on the street.
The first thing that comes in my mind is a deceiver. He's a
liar, because that's what it means to me. And if we approach
the Lord in ourselves, we will be called out on who we are.
He said, the Lord said, Jacob, or Jacob replied, Jacob is my
name. I'm the holder of the birthright by my own effort, by my own deceit.
I laid claim to the blessing by my mother's and his decision
and deception, by my decision and what I've done. But now I
want the blessing from God. I want the blessing by God's
will and his purpose. And the Lord then changed his
name to Israel. The Lord took the thing that
defined Jacob, that's who he was, and he changed it. And his
name instead would be a prince who has power with God. This position is not one achieves
by merit. This is not someone can earn
or can work their way to, nor human will can ever get to this
place. The only way that one's name
can be a prince who has power with God is by the grace of God. In Romans 9, I'll just read it
to you, it says, For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on
whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will
have compassion. So then it is not of him that
willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. It's all of the Lord. And then
Jacob asked the question himself, what is your name? Poor Jacob. walked himself into
this, and I see it. He has just been given the blessing
of the Lord. The Lord just told him, I am
changing who you are, and you are now going to go by my name.
You are now going to go by Israel. And Jacob responds and says,
well, what's your name? And the Lord humbly rebukes him,
And I don't know if Jacob was, his curiosity was trying to maybe,
is this, he questioned, is this really God? Is this really the
Lord? I'm not sure if he just wanted the Lord, he felt awkward
and he asked a question. I'm not sure if maybe there was
a little pride in Jacob, a little ambition, and he thought maybe
I can be on a first name basis with God. Whatever it was, the
Lord humbly rebuked him and made one thing very certain. Jacob
will not be carried beyond the bounds of faith prescribed for
the age in which he lived, meaning we believe God as He has been
pleased to reveal Himself to us. And true faith demands nothing
more. We need not ask questions of
our God. We need not ask for proof. We
need not to question Him or to see if He'll give us more. When
the Lord gives us our blessing, that's all we need and that's
all we should want. And finally in verse 30, Jacob
called the place Peniel, the face of God, for he said, I have
seen God face to face. This tells us quickly three things
about this encounter and what Jacob came away with. First,
there was no mere emotional experience in this. This was not something
that Jacob would describe in emotions or how he felt. So often
we hear someone describing being saved or the blessing of God
with emotions. I had this feeling or something
overcame me or I had to do this or I yelled out or all these
things. When the Lord touches one of
his sheep, there is of course an emotional feeling with that.
But when someone asked the child of God, when someone asked Jacob
in this moment, I don't know if Jacob ever told anyone about
this experience, but I promise if he did, he didn't say anything
about how he felt in all this. All he wanted to say is that
he had met the Lord Jesus Christ and what he'd done for him. Secondly,
no soul winner, no preacher, no other person told Jacob that
he'd been saved. Jacob had a personal encounter
with the Redeemer himself. That's how it works. How often
we wrestle with the question of, are we saved? No one can
ever tell us that. No one can ever convince us of
it, or if they do, it's wrongly. The Lord Jesus Christ and the
Holy Spirit does a work in a person and they have an encounter with
him themselves, and they're made to see it, to believe it, and
know it. And thirdly, Jacob knew that his life was preserved by
the will and act of God, who could have justly destroyed him. Jacob didn't deserve any better.
Jacob deserved what Esau, what he thought Esau was gonna do
to him. Jacob met God and he came away preserved, safe, whole. What a small matter it then became
for Jacob to go and meet Esau. And to close, let me say how
it happened when he went to Esau. Jacob, after this encounter,
was no longer afraid. Think about how afraid he was
that he divided his family into two groups thinking that that's
the best I can do. If Esau comes out to kill me,
he'll kill me and one of these two groups and someone can survive
from my family. He was scared to death. He was
no longer afraid, not because of anything he had done or because
of change in Esau, but he was safe and he felt like he had
the Lord's blessing. But when Esau came and met Jacob, Jacob's
first reaction was to bow down seven times to his brother. A
child of God who has the blessing of the Lord does not boast of
it, does not account anything in themselves to be better than
others. Jacob still understood that if
Esau wanted to kill him, he could. He still knew that's what he
deserved and that's what he had coming. But instead Esau reached
down, put his arms around his neck and hugged his brother and
asked him, why were you so worried? Why were you so worried? Jacob,
just like any child of God, has nothing to worry about in this
world because this world has nothing to offer for the child
of God. Once the Lord touches a sinner and they're made whole
and to understand what they have in Him, all the fears of this
world become obsolete. And though this world has no
power over us, we still live in it and we still must act in
a manner of becoming of the Lord. But we all ask, Lord, please
touch us. Please wrestle with our hearts.
Please do a work in us and make us to understand how weak we
are, how incapable we are, and how much we depend on the Lord
Jesus Christ. All right.